Tag Archives: politics

How will the Apprenticeship Levy changes affect schools?

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Will the changes to the Apprenticeship Levy announced today affect schools? I have argued before I this blog that the Apprenticeship Levy is in fact a tax on schools, and especially primary schools, as their individual budgets often all below the threshold for paying the levy, but, unless they are small stand-alone academies, they pay the Levy. This is because they are either maintained schools, where the local authority is the employer, or they are part of MATs or other arrangements where the salary bill crosses the threshold for paying the levy.

Now, a tax may not be a bad thing per se, especially if the proceeds are used for the good of those paying it. When it was first introduced some local authorities were slow to ensure the proceeds of the Levy were used by schools, and ended up returning unused cash to HM Treasury. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen anywhere today.

The announcement by the DfE this morning of the effective abolition of the Level 7 apprenticeships, expressed by the government as: “Refocusing funding away from Level 7 (masters-level) apprenticeships from January 2026”, (DfE Press Notice) comes hard on the heels of the announcement on the 9th May for the school sector about teaching apprenticeships that said:

“postgraduate teaching apprenticeship (PGTA) courses will be slashed from twelve months to nine, aligning to the school year and getting newly trained teachers into the classroom sooner.  

Courses currently run from September to September, meaning trainees typically have to wait months before kicking off their careers, and making it challenging for schools to support apprentices while training.  

The change will be made from August this year and is expected to open up more opportunities to train to teach, as well as accelerating trainees’ journeys to the front of the classroom.” Red tape slashed to get more teachers into classrooms – GOV.UK

On the one hand, the government gives, but on the other hand it could take away in-service opportunities for teacher development where these were paid from the Levy for Level 7 courses. The outcome must not be unspent levy cash once again being returned to the government by employers of teachers and other staff working in schools.

Incidentally, school leaders should check whether the employers of those services they contract out have a policy for using the Apprenticeship Levy that they pay. If they don’t, then schools may not be receiving full value for money for their expenditure.

How will the news affect higher education departments working with pre-service and in-service teachers, and others in the education field? If there is a move away from courses where trainees pay fees towards an employment-based apprenticeship with a salary and associated benefits that might reduce interest in higher education courses. If the removal of Level 7 apprenticeships cuts enrolment on higher degrees that could be a double whammy, coming just at a time when training targets are being affected by falling pupil numbers.  This may not be an easy summer for those responsible for training teachers, even if interest in the profession is once again on the increase.

Home Guard or Civil Defence Force?

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A new home guard will be established to protect key British infrastructure from attacks by hostile states and terrorists , under plans reportedly put forward in a major defence review. The Independent Sunday 18 May 2025

Less than a year after the issue of whether or not conscription was under consideration by a Conservative government surfaced during the early days of the 2024 general election, we now have a Labour Prime Minister presiding over a defence review that apparently wants to revive a part-time volunteer army. Whatever happened to The Territorials and their companion volunteer reserve forces in the other armed services?

We will have to await the full Defence Review to understand what is in the minds of those charged with the defence of the ream in the 21st century. At a time when there are more teachers in training than the whole establishment of the Royal Navy, (a factoid that never ceases to amaze me), something clearly has to be done about staffing our defence forces.

With the armed services no doubt open to pressure to reduce their numbers of Commonwealth recruits, a group that don’t often receive a mention in the debate about immigration, a review is obviously necessary if we need more people in our defence forces. Incidentally, I saw a post on LinkedIn recently that suggested there were days when the recruiting offices across the whole of Scotland only managed to recruit one person a day into all arms of the forces.

Will the Review consider the issue of cadet forces for young people. The remnants of these units are now rather haphazardly spread across the country, although the private schools have still, at least in the boys’ school sector, managed to retain many of their Combined Cadet Forces.

The CCF also used to be a feature in the State secondary school sector, at least in selective schools, but largely disappeared in the early 1960s, around the time that conscription was abolished. I recall that the school I attended has such a Force in 1958, when I joined the school, but by the time I reached the possible age to join, it had been disbanded.

Will an expansion of such forces be part of the proposals, or will the needs be just for adult volunteers. And what about the Royal Observer Corps – will that again feature as a part of the volunteer defence force?

Personally, I think a civil defence force that has wider uses than just preparing for a war is a more attractive proposition to sell to the general public. Afterall, even if saboteurs were to play an important part in the scheme of things, we already have the Civil Nuclear Police force to guard our high-risk power stations – and, incidentally, they are the only police force where all officers are trained and can carry firearms on a regular basis.

A civil defence force could help in times of national emergencies, such as floods, fires and other times of high risk – where increasingly firefighters are already a mixture of full-time professional and part-time retained officers, such as those that tragically lost their lives last week at the Bicester Motion conflagration –.

You only have to think of the fire bombs of the animal extremists that were inserted into clothing in shops to know how recruiting soldiers to stamp around outside possible targets is little more than gesture defending.

I will wait with interest, to see what actually the government will be proposing.  


Are there savings to be made in education?

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One of the tasks faced by someone no longer a councillor is to dispose of the vast accumulation of papers and reports collected over the years. While doing so it is possible to come across long forgotten articles. One such was an article that I wrote for the TES in their edition of 17th September 2010 that was headed ‘how to cut millions of pounds without harming the chalk face’.  Well, I suppose that ought to be the interactive whiteboard these days rather than the chalk face.

How relevant today are the suggestions I made at the end of a period when the Labour government led by Gordon Brown has favoured spending on education?

Back then, at a time when rolls were rising in primary schools, but still falling in the secondary sector: the opposite of the current situation, I focused firstly on the pension scheme and the cost of allowing private schools to be members of the teachers’ pension fund. I warned that uncapped salaries could risk bankrupting the scheme if there was either no cap on salaries or contributions didn’t rise.

In the event, the decision was taken to increase contributions and to ensure new entrants were on average salaries for their pensions rather than the more expensive final salary scheme previously available. However, the scheme is still massively expensive, especially as many pensioners are living longer. (note as a recipient of a public sector pension, I have an interest in anything the government does to public sector pensions).

My second suggestion was to reform teacher training to a more school-based system that required secondary schools only to train for the staff that they would need. In a period of falling rolls, it is easy for the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model that uses historical data to calculate the number of teachers needed to overestimate the needs of schools to recruit teachers. With a period of falling rolls currently facing schools, this is certainly an area where discussion might be helpful, especially after the recent announcement of more training places for graduate apprenticeships. Wasting training places, either for teachers that cannot find a teaching post in England or that start work in the private school sector, can lead to a mis-direction of funds.

Allied to the previous point of training, in 2010, I highlighted the issue of redundancies, and whether a system should be employed whereby all vacancies on offer by all state-funded schools should first be offered to those teachers facing redundancy: otherwise, the cost of redundancy payments for teachers that might then walk into another teaching post was a waste of money. How to handle the labour market for teachers during a period of falling rolls is something the DfE might still need to consider.

My concluding point related to Labour’s flagship projects. Of course, the one of those that mushroomed under the Conservative governments was the creation of Multi-Academy Trusts, each with its own chief officer and backroom staff. In Oxfordshire, there are around 20 MATs. Reducing that to say, five, could reduce central office costs, and allow the cash saved to be diverted into in-service training, and the recreation of an advisory and inspection service to stand between schools and ofsted, as well as identifying the future leaders of our schools, something the present system does not always do well. Saving just ten MAT CEO posts at £150,00 each might save around £2 million a year after on-costs have been taken into consideration.

Where there are falling rolls, unless overheads are reduced, the cash available for teaching and learning will undoubtedly be reduced in a period where the demands on government spending for areas such as defence and policing are uppermost in the mind of a government that doesn’t want to raise taxes, and thus may struggle to find extra cash for schooling.

‘Fully funded’ often doesn’t mean what it says for school budgets

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As usual, there is discussion about whether the recommendation of the School Teachers Remuneration Body (the STRB) about the level of increase for teachers’ salaries will be fully funded by the DfE this year. Of course, it depends upon what you mean by ‘fully funded’.  If the amount set aside by the DfE is less than the total pay bill, then clearly it won’t be fully funded.

However, even if it is ‘fully funded’ at the overall level, will that mean it will be fully funded for each and every individual school? Such an outcome is highly unlikely. Consider two schools; one has many young teachers and a high annual turnover of staff; the other, has a settled staff, mostly being paid at the top of their pay grade. Now also assume the first school is a maintained school with no top slicing, and the other part of a MAT that both top slices and pool reserves.

Are the two schools funded differently, assuming they are in the same local authority, with no differences in area cost adjustments or other factors. For the most part they won’t be, because of the working of the National Funding Formula that is largely based upon an amount per pupil.

There was less concern among school leaders about whether the pay bill was being met in full when pupil numbers were on the increase: it becomes much more an issue under the National Funding Formula when rolls are falling, and, as a result, a school’s income is set to reduce going forward.  

How did schools get into this position? In the 1990s when budgets were being devolved to schools from local authorities, schools could for the first time use their new freedoms to set their own staffing patterns.

Before the changes resulting from the Education Reform Act of 1988, local authorities set the staffing patterns for schools. Each school was allocated a Group, mostly from Grade 1 for the smallest of primary schools to Grade 7 for the largest secondary schools. Each grade had a point score, and that related to factors such as the number of promoted posts, and whether the school could employ a deputy head or heads. Special schools had their own grading that reflected their more complex staffing structure. The local authority picked up the staffing tab, much as some MATs do today.

All this central funding largely went out of the window with the devolution of funding to schools, although the salary of headteachers – especially in the primary sector – remained largely tied to the former group sizes for many years, often until the uncontrolled introduction of executive headteachers.

In these days of modern technology, it would be perfectly possible for the DfE to provide an uplift of the percentage recommended by the STRB that was related to each school’s salary bill. This would meet the need to ensure no school lost out from an average pay increase for all schools, but would have other consequences. I doubt the DfE would allow schools complete freedom over their staffing structure that they currently enjoy. Perhaps we might even see a return to the sort of structure that disappeared after schools’ gained control of their budgets: now there’s an interesting thought for a Labour government.

What should we do about children not in school?

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Is it time to start looking for a new solution to the issues surrounding children not in school? Currently too many young people are missing school for a variety of different reasons.

How about a ‘virtual school’ for all children not on a ‘normal’ school roll? The Local Authority where they live would assume responsibility on day one for any child without a school place, whether the child has moved into an area, and there is no mid-year SEND place available, (or other school places) or the young person has been excluded by a school, and has not yet been assigned another school.

Then there are those for who the normal school environment is not longer suitable. They should have a clearly defined place within the education system, managed by the local authority. Only in exceptional cases should responsibility for education be ceded to those parents that ask the state to educate their children.

Many young people might remain on the roll of the virtual school for a short-period of time. However, it would ensure no child for whom the state had assumed responsibility went missing from schooling.

Using the expertise gathered from the established model of virtual schools for children in care together with the work of hospital schools and services should ensure that a body of expertise would quickly develop to ensure all young people, whatever their challenges, had a programme of schooling mapped out for them, even if it didn’t look like the established regime of the traditional school day. However, there would be an expectation of regular contact between the virtual school and the pupil, with individual timetables of learning controlled through the school.

With a pupil being on a school roll at all times, parents would know that their children were part of a framework that includes inspection and has the child at its centre, and also removes the sense of isolation many children not in school can experience. The provision of a virtual school should also reduce the need for the use of section 61 of The Children and Families Act 2014.

The ‘virtual school’ would be able to commission ‘alternative provision’ from registered providers and in some cases be able to transfer the pupil to the roll of the alternative provider, where that was appropriate.

Many pupils in the care of the new virtual school would have special educational needs, as do many children that are the responsibility of the current virtual schools for young people in care. I believe that the notion of a ‘school’ is the best way to educate such children. The virtual school would work with both the SEND sector and the NHS, but be clear what is education and what is therapy, and the responsibility of the NHS.

The present funding model for SEND doesn’t work, and leaves many local authorities underfunded, and a small number of pupils costing significant amounts, while not being on the roll of any school. A virtual school should bring in-house many of the costs currently charged by the private sector for tutoring and other learning and allow some economies of scale to be developed. But, better education for every pupil must be the main aim: no child should be left out of schooling for a single day.

Pragmatism versus Principles

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Every politician should have principles. Some might call them values, and others might designate them as ideologies. Whatever name you use, they provide a yardstick by which to judge any government.

I know that there were two key message I passed on to senior leaders when I became a cabinet member in Oxfordshire. One was ‘no bin bags’ and the other ‘no young person on remand should be in Feltham YOI’. I might explain my reasoning behind each of these principles in a latter post, but for now it is enough to know that both were accepted by officers and, I believe, achieved.

Looking at the wider context of the present Labour government, there is one clear principle that they adopted quickly: tax the private school market through VAT and changes to business rate relief. This was the introduction of a long-standing view of the Labour Party that such schools are divisive and not good for society as a whole. This despite some Labour members sending their own children to such schools in the past.

Another, and equally important principle for the Labour party in the 1960s and 1970s was the drive to non-selective secondary education. Indeed, it was Shirley William that introduced the 1976 Education Act, the main purpose of which had been to introduce into law:

1The comprehensive principle

  • Subject to subsection (2) below, local education authorities shall, in the exercise and performance of their powers and duties relating to secondary education, have regard to the general principle that such education is to be provided only in schools where the arrangements for the admission of pupils are not based (wholly or partly) on selection by reference to ability or aptitude.

Education Act 1976

Special schools and schools for music and dancing were exempt from Clause 1.

The Act was only ever tested in the courts once, when the government took North Yorkshire County Council to court over provision in the Ripon area. Despite losing in the court, the Council ignored the judgment, as it was made very close to the 1979 election that Labour was expected to lose, and indeed did do so, to the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher. Clause 1 of the 1976 Act was repealed by the incoming government in July 1979, just two months after the general election.

Since then, we have had nearly 50 years of mostly the ‘status quo’ remaining in place regarding the organisation of secondary education. It is interesting that the Blair government, elected in 1997, using the strapline of ‘education, education, education’ started off by introducing tuition fees for higher education, but never tackled the secondary school system.

I wonder why the current Labour government, just like the 1997 Blair administration, supported by a large majority in parliament hasn’t discussed a common framework for a national schooling system to put alongside the National Funding Formula created by the Conservatives?

Taking up the reigns again

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Nineteen months ago, I paused this blog when I was appointed as the cabinet member for children, education and families on Oxfordshire County Council. Tomorrow, I officially relinquish that role after failing to win one of the newly created seats in the county council election: one of the few Liberal Democrats to be in such a position.

As a result of no longer being a councillor, and cabinet member, it does mean that I am able to start this blog again. However, even when I was a cabinet member, I have continued to post my views about recruitment into teacher training on LinkedIn. I am grateful to those that have commented on those monthly updates.

Much has changed in the education scene during the time that my blog has been paused. We now have a Labour government, but two-party politics has disappeared from the scene.

What is it, I wonder, about the third decade of each century that results in massive changes in the political landscape. A century ago, the Labour Party displaced the Liberal Party of Asquith and Lloyd George as the opposition to the Conservative Party in a two-party system. Two centuries ago, the start of the urbanisation resulted in a rapid growth in the electorate; a change that in 1832 was to lead to the Reform Act and the start of a road to universal suffrage.

In this context of political change, it is interesting that the DfE’s Interim Curriculum Review had little to say about citizenship as a subject. Perhaps the results of last Thursday might persuade the government to reconsider the importance of protecting democracy by reintroducing the subject into the curriculum.

However, to do so might mean changes in funding, not least for ITT subject targets. I am pessimistic about future funding for education. More funding for defence and the NHS will put pressure on government funding for department such as Education.

Nevertheless, I do believe that rationalisation within the academy sector could reduce spending on back-office salaries. I am also firmly of the belief that with a National Funding Formula being pupil driven, the practice of pooling schools’ balances within a MAT is unhelpful.

When such pooling involves cash balances being pooled across different local authority areas, then I am totally opposed to such a practice. But, then, I believe schooling has a very strong ‘place’ component. I also believe that the local community should have a democratic involvement.  I do not want a schooling system with the same level of local accountability as the NHS.

The nightmare that is SEND was simmering in the background 18 months ago, and it was a poor ofsted judgement that parachuted me into Oxfordshire’s Cabinet, after the Labour Party walked away from the administration. With the National Audit Office, The Education Select Committee and others revealing the scale of the task ahead, there remains much work to be done to support the education of our most physically and mentally challenged young people. As with adult social care, where the Select Committee has reported today, relationships between education and the health service are an important part of the resourcing debate about the best use of funds for the SEND sector.

I take my hat off to the officers managing the remaining local government functions within schooling, many of which, as with home to school transport, often bring parents and officers into disagreement. Although no fan of the undemocratic MATs, I also acknowledge the great work many of their leaders are doing for the education of the nation’s children. I just wish they had more local democratic oversight and support.

STRB and teacher recruitment

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Before 2015, the STRB (School Teachers’ Pay Review Body) used to report no later than March in most years, School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) reports – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) However, since the Conservative Party took over the sole management of the country in 2015, the publication of the STRB’s annual report, along with other pay body reports, has moved to July each year.

Such a date, so late in the annual government business cycle, at a point where departments should already be gearing up the next round of economic arguments within government, is unhelpful in many ways.

Obviously, it leaves The Treasury unsure about government expenditure, assuming the suggestions of the STRB are both accepted and fully funded. If one or other of those assumptions isn’t correct, but pay scales are increased from the September, then it places a burden on schools to find the cash to pay any increases, as I discussed in an earlier post. Sunak’s blunt axe | John Howson (wordpress.com)

The lack of clarity around starting salaries also makes recruitment into the profession potentially more challenging. A significant proportion of those entering the profession are still required to make a financial sacrifice to train as a teacher. To do so not knowing what either the possible salary they will receive during training – if paid on the unqualified scale – or their potential starting salary, if on a fee-paying course, is not an incentive to enter teaching. This may be specially the case for the important group of career switchers that are needed during the present dip in the number of new home-based graduates in their early 20s.

Once the new generation of graduates from the last baby boomer generation exits university, in a few years’ time, this may be less of an issue, assuming higher education entry rates hold up, and those most likely to become teachers don’t opt for apprenticeships or direct entry into the labour market and a salary immediately after leaving school.

Governments have always faced economic crises, lucky the Chancellor with benign economic headwinds, and must take difficult decisions. 101 years ago, the Liberal Government faced with the massive increase in government expenditure sanctioned by a government to fight the first world war, and seeking to restrain sky-high rates of taxation, looked for areas where public expenditure could be reduced – or cut – an exercise known after the chairman of the committee, Lord Geddes.

Perhaps, The Labour Party’s Leader’s speech on the ‘class ceiling’ was no accident, because it is those trying to crash through the ceiling that experience the worse outcomes of any pay restraint that leaders to teacher shortages. As I pointed in an earlier post, out, identifying the issue is one thing; solving it needs policies, and they were in short-supply in the speech from Sir Kier Starmer last week.

Perhaps, as suggested in the 1920s, rather than just telling schools to save money, the government might be more draconian in enforcing savings to pay for increased pay. But then, this, sadly, isn’t an area where the present government has had a good track record in recent times.  

Merry-go-round of Ministers has repercussions

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I am grateful to freelancer and former TES journalist, Adi Bloom, for this interesting fact

Between the start of July and the end of October last year [2022], there were four new education secretaries, as well as a succession of junior ministers. And, between them they held 133 events labelled “introductory meeting to discuss the organisation following the ministerial reshuffle”.

This paralysis no doubt was replicated across government. Adi has written a witty piece on her LinkedIn page about the current Secretary of State’s possible icebreaker meeting with the key trade union (professional association) general secretaries of the teacher groups that readers might with to search out. In passing, I wonder whether Secretaries of State ever hold such meeting with trade unions representing the non-teaching staff in schools that now outnumber teachers?

Anyway, the essential point is whether this rapid turnover of ministers may have contributed to the government’s challenges over public sector pay. Might a Cabinet with more experience of their department, running to more than a few days tenure, have anticipated the implications of public sector pay review bodies controlling pay rises each year and a rapid an unpredicted increase in inflation better than seems to have been the case.

Might ministers, such as the Secretary of State for Education, that had been in post for some time, and thus more secure in their portfolio, have both had better relations with civil servants in order to have been able to ask questions about pay policy and recruitment and retention of the teacher workforce and have struck up some sort of rapport with teachers’ leaders? Possible as a scenario, but unlikely I grant you, but impossible with such a rapid turnover of minsters?

Much must also depend upon the character of the individual as Secretary of State, and their willingness to create inter-personal relations with key players in the education landscape. The absence of the Secretary of State from the ASCL conference, plus a relative lack of appearances in the media raises the question as to whether the present incumbent of the top job at Sanctuary Buildings isn’t one for the limelight. Some that have held the office or Secretary of State have enjoyed the public nature of their role while others, were rarely seen in public, and their stewardship goes largely unremembered.

We have now entered that phase of the life of a parliament where it becomes more of a challenge to create policy, except in areas where ministers have direct control. Intermediaries can now drag their feet secure in the knowledge that a general election is likely to be no more than 18 months away, and that the present government isn’t likely to be returned with the same majority as a present, even if it is returned at all.

Equally, ministers can leave difficult decisions to their successor to deal with. It’s worth recalling that under the coalition’s fixed term Parliament Act there would have had to have been an election this year. Perhaps the current Prime Minister might use that as an excuse for an autumn election is next month’s local elections are really frightful?

Can state services save money for schools?

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When I first started writing this blog, back in early 2013, now nearly a decade ago, one of my mistakes was not to create an index. With more than 1,300 posts later, to do so now would be a labour of love that at present I don’t have the time for. The lack of an index means I am largely dependent upon visitors throwing up links to former posts to supplement my own memory of issues such as Jacob’s Law – discussed in the previous post.

Today, I have been reminded of a post from January 2018 about costs and savings in the education system that is relevant to the present economic situation. You can read the full post at Not Full Circle? | John Howson (wordpress.com) but one key paragraph was this:

“…. I wonder whether another stage in the cycle of government contracting is starting to emerge. In the immediate post-war period of central planning, public bodies often ran most services. There was no profit element to consider, but cost controls were of variable quality. The Thatcher era saw a mass transfer of services to private companies, with an expectation that costs would fall. Maybe some did, but others didn’t and some benefitted from the proceeds of technological change that drove down costs, but didn’t create competition and didn’t always drive down prices.”

This 2018 post had built upon an even earlier one from July 2014 Private or public | John Howson (wordpress.com) that dealt with the issue, concerning even then, of the cost of outsourcing children’s services to the private sector with no control over rising costs.

At that time, I was establishing TeachVac www.teachvac. To demonstrate how costs of recruitment advertising could be reduced. I concluded the post with the comment that;

“In a time of cutbacks on government expenditure, as we have witnessed during the past six years, it is inevitable that staffing costs will come under pressure, and the debate between cutting wages or cutting services will rage. Sometimes there is a third way, and a new technology or a different approach, can achieve the same service level for lower costs. Is that what we ought to be striving for in education? The only other alternative to preserve service levels is higher taxes.”

This debate about the profit element, and where the most cost-effective system can be found, is once again a live one as the country faces a new round of coping with living beyond its means and the consequences of a foolish attempt to ‘dash for growth’ when other global factors were pointing towards the need for sound government.

How to make savings in a devolved system such as schooling in England is an interesting question. Perhaps we should start with the role of the DfE. Is it there to provide services on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis, such as their vacancy site or is it there to bring together the different players to work out the best value approach for schools. If the latter, how does it enforce such a best value approach? Perhaps the annual audit report should make a comment to governors about where a school spending exceeds a benchmark?

TeachVac is currently in the process of creating an index on recruitment showing the position that a school sits both locally and nationally. Such an index would provide evidence to show the degree high spending on recruitment was necessary and justified.